“District 9” Director Neill Blomkamp to Direct New “RoboCop” Movie

The film will be based on unmade sequel to the 1987 original.

7 months ago

Neill Blomkamp, director of the dystopian sci-fi movies District 9, Elysium and Chappie has been officially announced as the director for the upcoming RoboCop. The movie will be a follow up to the ’80s classic, and will be titled RoboCop Returns. MGM hopes to revive a franchise that began with the Paul Verhoeven-directed satirical sci-fi action thriller that Orion released in 1987, Deadline reports. The script will be based off the one that Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner wrote years ago as a planned sequel, that never happened, to the Verhoeven hit. Maxim reports that the plot of the film is: “Anarchy reigns and the fate of Detroit hangs in the balance as RoboCop makes his triumphant return to fight crime and corruption.”

Blomkamp’s District 9 grossed $210 million worldwide and got four Oscar nominations. He followed that with several science fiction films that carried underlying messages, like Chappie.

“The original definitely had a massive effect on me as a kid,” Blomkamp told Deadline. “I loved it then and it remains a classic in the end of 20th Century sci-fi catalog, with real meaning under the surface. Hopefully that is something we can get closer to in making of a sequel. That is my goal here.”